placenamesClear Island
Cléire
Lewis’s 1837 account describes a summer fishing rhythm and the labour needed to grow crops on the island.
The name
A reliable full-name meaning has not been established here. The recorded Irish and English forms are given without an unsupported translation.
Recorded forms
- Cléire · Irish · main form · validated name
- Clear Island · English · main form
Place & story
A week at sea
Samuel Lewis described summer fishing voyages from Clear Island, County Cork, beginning on Monday or Tuesday and ending on Friday evening or Saturday morning. Boats used included hookers or half-decked vessels. On their return, women cured the catch, which visiting merchants bought; fish left unsold went to Cork. This is the working pattern recorded in his 1837 account, rather than a description of every crew or season. [2]
Cultivation above the shore
Lewis also described women cultivating the island’s shallow soil with spades and carrying sand and seaweed from the shore as manure. Oats and potatoes were the main crops, but harvests could fall short of local needs. His account records fuel arriving from the mainland and an additional fuel made by drying black mud from near the western lake. It does not quantify how much either source supplied. [2]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Civil parish
- County
- Cork
- Barony
- Carbery West (E.D.)
- Coordinates
- 51.43783, -9.49628
- Mapped area
- 6.51 km²
- Logainm ID
- 543 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Clear Island. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Cape Clear Island, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) · Samuel Lewis
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2026-06-25. How this page was prepared.